Visitors are being treated to interactive displays from artists, including speed painter John Hicks, as well as a range of strange and wonderful characters from stilt walkers and clowns, to a five foot budgerigar.

Avian polyomavirus (APV) was first described as the causative agent of budgerigar fledgling disease, an acute fatal disease of budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus) that causes up to 100% mortality in neonates and was subsequently designated as budgerigar fledgling disease virus (BFDV).

Abstract: To compare the efficacy of treatment protocols recommended to aid passage of metallic foreign objects from the ventriculus of birds, a 1-turn metal sphere, made from solder wire, was placed into the crop of each of 44 budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus).

An eventual mortality rate of 70% occurred in the Neophema species, but a group of budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus) and parrotlets (Forpus species) kept in the same facility showed no clinical signs during the outbreak.

In addition, 5 budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus) that had died after being used as biologic sentinels in enclosures thought to be contaminated were submitted for necropsy to confirm the presence of Sarcocystis species.

In birds, adenomas have been reported most often to arise from the pituitary gland in budgerigars (17,18) but have also been described to arise from the uropygial gland, pancreas, thyroid gland, (19) and kidney.

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